Fickle

It is a media tradition to hammer at flailing coaches with frowny-face serious questions about how hard everything is on the players and coaches and such because they have to put up with this howling pack of fans. And I try not to get exercised about anything that comes out of that, just like I try to roll my eyes and move on at every article about a triumph in the face of The Critics. Coaches arrive at press conferences at one goal: to get out without saying something notable. When they do say something notable, it is a mistake.

"You know, people are fickle," Hoke said. "That's just the way it is. That's the world we live in."

This is of course horseshit. It's horseshit on the level of "we need to run a pro-style offense so we can stop Big Ten offense," i.e., the greatest and grandest horseshit in all the world. Hercules is required to shovel this. The big reveal from the last 20 years of media development is that fans are the only people left who aren't fickle. They can't stop watching, and what's more they can't stop watching live with all those lovely commercials interspersed. Fans submit themselves until they have commercials memorized. Until they are legendary.

In all other areas of television consumption I go out of my way to avoid commercials, going so far as to not watch recent seasons of shows I like until they arrive on Netflix. It will be four years before I see the Patton Oswalt filibuster in context. This is why every time a rights deal expires, networks treat the newly single package of games like it's the last cabbage patch doll on Black Friday.

Meanwhile, the people in charge have decided to test the edges of that fandom with an explosion in ticket prices. Paul Campos:

Here’s the price of a regular admission (not student) University of Michigan football ticket over time.

(All figures are in 2012 dollars, rounded to the nearest dollar. I couldn’t find 1970 and 1980 so I substituted the nearest available year).

This year a seat on the 15 yard line is 129 dollars with the PSL, almost three times as much as it was in 2000 and almost four times as much as it was in 1990, in constant 2012 dollars.

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Ryan Field was half Michigan fans, for some reason [Bryan Fuller]

In Michigan's specific case, they have beaten Ohio State once in the last nine years and are two-touchdown home underdogs. They are getting gouged on ticket prices in an unprecedented fashion. The athletic department has made it absolutely clear that it has no loyalty to them with "dynamic pricing" that only goes one way. Up.

There is a breaking point for even the most zealous fan. I'm the guy with the blog that's his career and I'm at mine. The only reason I am going on Saturday is because I would feel shame at not going. Absent the weird moral imperatives of fandom, I would be doing anything else. Like bowling, which I hate.

Everybody in blue in that stadium—and it will still be a majority, probably—is paying for the privilege of having their heart punched. Unlike you, they are not getting three million dollars to watch Michigan shuffle around like a syphilitic pig who thinks everything's a truffle. Collectively they are in fact giving you those three million dollars. Collectively they built the stadium you play in and the opulent locker rooms you dress in.

So take your "fickle" and shove it. Angry, sure. Impatient, sure. Because we are locked into this thing we do every week that we pretty much hate. We do so out of a sense of loyalty that the program goddamn well doesn't reciprocate with its 500 dollar waiting lists and worst access level in the country—the team that is going to stuff you in a locker on Saturday has open practices in front of the entire student section—and scheduling goddamned Appalachian State because the athletic director thinks it's cute. Any reasonable person would look at the recent history of Michigan football and go do anything else. We're here because we're locked in.

You? You've got a buyout.

It is not the fans' fault that this program is awful to be a fan of. It's not Rich Rodriguez's fault. Anyone who sells their ticket for whatever they can get—currently 60 bucks and dropping from 80 yesterday—is only making a logical decision to not get punched in the soul dong on Saturday.

I'll hate them all the same, but half out of envy this time. They are no longer mindless wallets. They don't give a crap if Brady Hoke calls them fickle, and don't write articles on the internet about it. They are logical people.

The reason Michigan Stadium is going to be half-red on Saturday isn't because of "the world we live in" except insofar as it contains a Michigan football team that people at Abu Ghraib wouldn't show prisoners.

Really? You are not helping your argument that you are unfairly targeted.

As for my presence - it will make a difference. I will not sell my ticket to an OSU fan. I will support the team. Every person counts, just as every vote counts. It doesn't mean I really want to be there, but I will be because I love my school and I will support the players that represent my school always. I, like most Michigan alums, am decidedly not fickle.

I do not think Brian being hypocritical, and no he's not just angry that we don't run his preferred offense. I think he and I are in the same boat.

The only people who don't think Rich Rod is a great coach are Michigan fans. The only people who think Brady Hoke is a great coach are Michigan fans and Jason Whitlock.

Rich Rod has built juggernauts everywhere he's gone. He's had huge wins and was essentially a broken thumb from playing for a national title at West Virginia, which has turned back into its mediocre self since he left. He improved every season and year four was set up, with the incredibly easy schedule and upperclassman superstar QB, to be a break out year. He wasn't given a 4th year for one reason and one reason alone: he's not a "Michigan Man" and he didn't know Bo. Yes, part of that was because of Rich Rod miscalculating the culture and losing bad losses, but he didn't get the benefit of the doubt, even when his track record should have allowed him to have it, because there was no help from the old Bo/Lloyd guys.

Brady Hoke's track record is weak. He has never beaten a ranked team on the road. Not just at Michigan, I mean ever. The best road win of his career is beating an 8-4 Navy team in 2007. He's never won a conference chanpionship. He's never beaten a team that's finished in the top 15 (and it might even be top 20 depending on where Va Tech finished). He's a decent recruiter and he loves Michigan, but he does not have the resume of an elite coach, especailly compared to the coaches of our rivals, two of whom are younger than Hoke.

Brady Hoke is a nice guy and an average coach. There's a reason why his 12-1 season led to him going to SDSU and not a BCS team. He's Michigan's coach for three reasons. Les Miles is forbidden. The Harbaugh's wanted to try and win a Super Bowl. And, he's a "Michigan Man" who lets Dave Brandon play Jerry Jones in the film room because he's dreamed of coaching Michigan and is terrified of losing it. His sucess at Michigan has come from having one of the most dynamic players ever to play at Michigan running around against inferior oppenents and having Dave Brandon coax Mattison into being DC. Even in the Sugar Bowl year we finished third in the conference. He's middling in a terrible conference, which is bar far the worst major conference in America (No I don't count American as a major conference even though they inexplicably have the Big East's autobid).

Brian's ftrustrations, if they're like mine, come from the fact that this money that's coming into the program doesn't even matter. We are in this mess because Rich Rod couldn't lure Casteel to Michigan because he couldn't give him a guaranteed contract. To make matters worse, after the failure of Rich Rod, instead of doing what OSU and Alabama did in paying top dollar for a great coach, we went bargain basement on a guy with no real record of winning championships. This has nothing to do with RIch Rod's style or even his coaching. There was cause to fire him, but only if you could replace him with someone better. Because we didn't do that, we're now in a corner. Too often the problem is that being loyal to the program's success and criticizing Hoke and Brandon has been met with being called disloyal to our past with Bo, Lloyd, etc or being hyprocritical as a Rich Rod defender (which is connected to the disloyalty of our past in an endless cycle).

Why were the fans down on RRod? Cuz the defenses started abysmal, got worse every year. Because he was paid to give us wins and instead gave us excuses. Because he said deliberately he didn't care what came before him at one of the most tradition rich program in all of sports. Because his teams got weaker as each year went along.

Because there's NOTHING about his tenure here to suggest that he'd have done better than Hoke. NOT ONE THING.

I don't care if he fits in elsewhere, and I don't wish any ill upon him, but I will never EVER regret that he is no longer at the helm of this team.

Too often the problem is that being loyal to the program's success and criticizing Hoke and Brandon has been met with being called disloyal to our past with Bo, Lloyd, etc or being hyprocritical as a Rich Rod defender (which is connected to the disloyalty of our past in an endless cycle)

This. A thousand times this. At this point, the Bo Legacy hangs around this program like a millstone. That's not to mean that Bo wasn't a great football coach and ambassador for this university, worthy of having his name on the outside of one of our facility buildings; but until the Michigan culture can get past the "What Would Bo Do / Michigan Man" mentality it is locked into currently, we are always going to find ourselves painted into a corner to some extent. Let's be honest, that is the primary reason Hoke was ultimately given the job here, because he passed the "Michigan Man" eye test to an alumni base and fanbase that has deceived itself into thinking that was the only part of the formula that mattered for a coach to be successful here.

Now Hoke may ultimately prove our current concerns are unfounded and go on to great success here at Michigan. I hope he does, I really do. Nothing would make me happier than to see Brady retire 10-15 years from now with a collection of conferenece trophies, double-digit win seasons, bowl victories, appearances in the BCS playoffs, championships, etc...all with a pre-ordained successor in the wings from his own staff to carry on the program continuity he has fostered after such a rocky start. But we need to recognize as a fanbase and as an alumni culture the vulnerability to our program when we close ourselves off to certain options in the coaching arena because we cling to a philosophy of a person who stepped down as our head coach almost a quarter of a century ago and has been departed nearly a decade now.

Putting aside the Schembechler model for how a football team and football program has to be run is a healthy thing for us to do in the long run. It doesn't mean we are forgetting the man or don't care about what he did here, but at some point you need to open up to new ideas if you're going to grow and thrive. Michigan just doesn't have that feel right now.

As I said, maybe Hoke will prove us wrong and I really hope he does, but if we're here 15, 20, 30 years from now, talking about the merits of the next prospective leader of Michigan football and having "Michigan Man" enter into the equation, it probably doesn't bode well us.

I think when there is a long time successful coach there is a desire to keep doing what he was going and so they hire a guy like him or connected to him. Alabama had the same thing after Bear Bryant died in the 80's. They tried his guys and did have success with Gene Stallings but otherwise they just got through until they left the reservation and got Saban.

You could argue that Nebraska is still suffering from that post-Tom Osbourne hangover as well. Ohio went through it to some extent after Woody left. Penn State would probably be falling victim to it right now were it not for the Sandusky scandal. Ironically, while the sanctions will certainly hurt PSU in the short term, in the long run the program will probably be better off since the Athletic Department has been forced to pretty much just cut all ties to Paterno and his legacy. They get a fresh start.

If there is a silver lining to the season, this discussion of what it means to be a fan is interesting. Michigan had such a tradition of winning for so long that we never really had to think about it. I don't live in Ann Arbor anymore but grew up going to the games and always was there on Saturdays when I was a student. This is my dad's 40th year as a season ticket holder, and right now you can buy his ticket to The Game on stubhub.

I think the relation of a fan to a team is complex, and the relationship of Michigan fans to Michigan football is in some ways unique in the world of college football, or even in the world of sports. Try to reduce what is going on in the hearts of fans right now to simple terms like "fair weather" and you will fail to understand it. It isn't simple black or white. That is the world we live in.

The part Brian wrote about how the only reason he's going is because of shame. This isn't the first time he has made a comment like this. I would be ashamed if my career was based on being a Michigan fan and I wrote that sentence. Support the team. Cheer for these guys who work their tails off. Try to have a good time in the coolest stadium in America. I will be there (driving 5 hours to get there) and will cherish the experience. Life isn't always rainbows, and being a fan will teach you these things. Getting mad, frustrated, etc... is natural, just please don't act like it's a horrible chore to do what most of us only get a few chances to do in a lifetime: witness "The Game." It is my 3rd UM v OSU and I can't wait to see it all unfold. Go Blue!!!

I'll be there bright and early this Saturday just like I always am. And if the Big House is filled with red (as it always was throughout the Bump years), then shame on the fans. So it's been a ho-hum season, so what? Get over it, you crybabies.

Hoke's right about fickle fans. I remember when people were up in arms that an interim coach got the full time job (Carr). Then he won UM's first national title in 50 years, and everyone loved him. Then for the last 7 years or so of his career UM fans were calling for his head.

I think we all owe Hoke a chance here. After the attrocious RR years, Hoke actually beat State and OSU. He's only got one loss at the Big House, and this is only season 3. Give him some time. The season may have been a disappointment, but if these rumors about season ticket holders selling out on stubhub are true, that is just bush league. Win or lose, you go out and support the team.

I do find it slightly ironic that you talk about how Michigan would do great in a system where all the players were paid because of the large wealthy fan base. But at the same time there is non stop complaining about ticket prices that are there just to keep the current system funded.

This is a man who wouldn't even wear the school colors of schools he coached at because he is so maize and blue. Whether you think that's awesome or lame, that's how deep his fandom ran, even after leaving UM to coach at other schools. I can only imagine how hard it is for him to think that people are giving up on his team, no matter how hard the players try in practice and in games. A lot of us disagree with coaching decisions, play-calling, etc., but I don't think any of us think they just aren't trying. I will never ever stop being a Michigan fan. I will never ever stop cheering for The Team, even if we are driving with two minutes left in the fourth quarter, down by three touchdowns. That's what being a fan means to me. I do not blindly support the coaches. I have criticized Coach Hoke, Coach Borges, and David Brandon. But I will never stop supporting The Team. And it truly makes me sad to see so many "fans" calling players and coaches names, saying unconstructive things like "they suck," saying they are giving up their season tickets, etc. It makes me sad for the 18-23 year old kids who, while receiving many benefits for playing at Michigan, also make sacrifices to try to make the fans and their parents and coaches proud. Whether we are 3-9 or 7-4, those kids do not deserve to look out into the stands on Saturday and see a sea of red, or to get booed by their own fans, or to have hate tweets sent to them by their own fans, or to have their own fans saying Devin Gardner is a disgrace to #98. They just don't deserve that.

What a big effing baby. If you're so unhappy then don't go. Whaaaa I'm locked in, whaaaa! Its my career, whaaa! The ticket prices, whaaa! Jesus dude, be happy you don't have a shit job like some of us.